You are a research associate preparing inputs for a long task that references two lengthy...

Option A is correct because Claude’s context window is finite and must accommodate the system instructions, conversation history, documents, tool results, the current request, and the generated response. Anthropic specifically cautions that more context is not automatically better: as unnecessary content accumulates, relevant details may become harder to retrieve and accuracy can decline through “context rot.” Curating the context is therefore as important as its total capacity.

Extracting only the applicable regulatory sections preserves the authoritative language needed for the task while removing unrelated chapters that consume tokens and distract from the relevant requirements. The extracts should retain headings, section identifiers, effective dates, and source labels so Claude’s conclusions remain traceable. Option B wastes capacity and may reduce focus. Option C destroys meaningful semantic structure and creates an unusable interaction pattern. Option D removes the grounding evidence entirely and invites hallucination, which is especially inappropriate for regulatory analysis.

For long documents, Anthropic also recommends grounding claims in direct quotations and citations. Thus, the strongest approach is to provide carefully selected, clearly labelled excerpts and require Claude to trace material claims to them. See Anthropic’s documentation on context windows and reducing hallucinations .

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